Don Young: Roll back regs to 1991

If Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young has his way, all regulations from the past 20 years would vanish — just like that.

Young said Tuesday he plans to introduce legislation this fall to repeal every federal regulation installed since 1991, the Anchorage Daily News reports.

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"My bill is very simple, I just null and void any regulations passed in the last 20 years," Young said at a speech at the Anchorage Downtown Rotary Club. "I picked 20 years ago because it crossed party lines and also we were prosperous at that time. And no new regulations until they can justify them."

The U.S. economy was in recession in late 1990 and early 1991, and the economic downturn at the time helped Democrat Bill Clinton capture the White House the next year.

Asked whether his proposed rollback meant that Wall Street shouldn't be regulated, Young said he was more interested in issues like the paperwork needed to meet transportation security regulations for barge commerce on the Yukon River, the Daily News reports.

"When we deregulated the financial institutions which we did I believe probably 10 years ago we created some problems. There's no doubt about that. I'm more interested in regulations that do not have any founding," Young said.

Interestingly, Young began his speech calling out Washington partisanship and blasting both sides for not listening to voters in the middle.

"You have two extremes to the right and the left trying to run this country and the middle is not being heard. We have to get back to the middle," Young said.

"My side of the aisle wants to cut our way into prosperity," he added. "We cannot do that. You can control spending but you cannot cut your way into prosperity. You have to add new dollars to the structure and economic base of this nation."

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 9:01 a.m. on September 28, 2011.